Academic Year 2011 in Review (N-boy)
N-boy had a wonderful year! He, too, improved in his skill areas at a great rate. I’m very pleased with his seemingly natural understanding of math and his reading prowess.
N-boy, also, gets frustrated if he doesn’t learn easily, but his frustration is much more physical. We are working on it. He works pretty well independently, but could use some support in this area.
English:
- Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and Bob Books: N-boy finished the book! He worked hard to complete it this year and his reading is very good. He enjoys reading aloud to Daddy and R-girl and reading on his own as well. He is very ready for spelling. I’m hopeful that Spelling Power will be as good for him as it has been for M-girl.
- First Language Lessons 1: he doesn’t really care about grammar, but has learned and done well with this. He is definitely ready for writing practice! He loves to write stories and pictures (when it is his own choice), but needs help with the mechanics.
- McGuffey Readers & CLP Nature Readers (reading practice) didn’t do as much of this as I had hoped. We’ll have to fold this back in for 2012.
- Explode the Code he did a good job with this, and it seems to help, so he’ll be continuing.
Penmanship: Cursive First has not been as consistent with N-boy as it had been for M-girl. We’ll hit this running in 2012.
Math: MEP with Math Mammoth supplement. N-boy has done magnificently with MEP. He’s not far behind M-girl (20 or so lessons behind!) and his understanding is quite good. The Math Mammoth practice has also been good for him, but we may cut back and change how we use it.
Logic: Mindbenders Warm-Up then Critical Thinking Activities have been good thinking skills for N-boy. I need to do a better job of having the Critical Thinking Activities ready for his use.
N-boy also started working on a “Telling Time” workbook and the Evan Moore Geography workbook. These were very well received and effective for self-teaching with him.